Children's Home run by Kingston upon Hull City Council in Kingston upon Hull

Inspection report children’s home: SC034495 1 SC034495 Registered provider: Kingston Upon Hull City Council

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Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This local authority home is registered to meet the needs of children who have a learning disability. It currently provides care and accommodation for three children in long-term care, three children for whom care is shared with their parents, and 17 children receiving a short-term break.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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outstanding

How well children and young people are helped and protected outstanding

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outstanding

The effectiveness of leaders and managers outstanding

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outstanding

The children’s home provides highly effective services that consistently exceed the standards of good. The actions of the children’s home contribute to significantly improved outcomes and positive experiences for children and young people who need help, protection and care.

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outstanding

Overall judgement at last inspection: sustained effectiveness

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outstanding

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: SC034495 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

10/03/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 29/11/2016 Full Outstanding 24/03/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness 22/12/2015 Full Outstanding Inspection report children’s home: SC034495 3

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Recommendations

 The home’s records on each child represent a significant contribution to their life history. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.5) The home’s care programmes should be more effectively timed to include information on what is going to happen, and by when. This information will provide more effective evidence of any planned progress in the child’s care.

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Recommendations

 Any individual appointed to carry out visits to the home as an independent person must make a rigorous and impartial assessment of the home’s arrangements for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the children in the home’s care. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 65, paragraph 15.5) Reports from the independent visitor would benefit from the inclusion of their opinion on the home’s effectiveness in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of its residents.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The outcomes for children who are looked after at this home are exceptional because the home’s very experienced staff are highly flexible when responding to children’s needs. They work closely with a wide range of professional partners to ensure that children who stay are receiving the highest possible standard of personalised care.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children are offered an exceptionally wide range of activities at the home on evenings, weekends and holidays, because the building is spacious. This space is used well to provide varied facilities such as a cinema, computer room and sensory rooms. The home’s highly positive offerings are further enhanced by the colocation of the Leisure and Activities for Families Service (LAFFS), which allows children to join in at youth clubs and discos with their peers, if they want to.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The small number of children who live at this home in long-term, permanent or shared care arrangements have access to a separate lounge where they can spend quiet time away from activities, if they choose. Colourful displays around the home show children clearly enjoying various activities and events.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children are supported by a group of staff who are well trained to meet their individual Inspection report children’s home: SC034495 4 personal care needs. Staff operate to a roster, which ensures that there are sufficient numbers on duty at key times to offer each child individual attention and support. This means that while children can enjoy themselves and have fun on evenings, weekends and holidays, their parents or carers can relax knowing they are being well cared for. Parents and carers spoken to said that they fully trust the home’s staff, whom they each described as ‘amazing’.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Each child is the subject of an individualised written care programme which provides staff with detailed information about their day-to-day requirements. Care programmes are suitably informed by a very wide range of professional partners including schools, occupational and speech and language therapists, and physiotherapists. In addition, a dedicated child and adolescent mental health service specialising in children with a learning disability works closely with the home to promote children’s emotional well- being. Partners spoken to talked very positively about their relationship with the home, which they felt was receptive to their advice and adaptive to the specific needs of each individual child.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Highly detailed care programmes are well informed by professional partners, and this means that the home can demonstrate transformational progress in children’s lives. However, the home’s care programmes could be better tied to children’s social workers’ assessments of their needs, as they currently stand alone. The excellent progress made by children because of the home’s input could be better evidenced by the inclusion of milestones and deadlines on their written care programmes. For example, the recent significant improvement that the home has made in the sleep pattern of a child who had a very chaotic sleep routine on admission could have been mapped out more clearly on their care programme.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Overall, the provision by the home of well-focused, personalised care means that the disabled children it serves are offered an excellent service. As one professional partner said, ‘I know that this is a place where children love to be because every time I visit, before I have seen anyone, I can hear children’s laughter ringing up the hallway of the home.’

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: outstanding

Children who are looked after at this home stay for varying periods of time. A small number are long-term, permanent residents, another small group have shared care arrangements between the home and their carers, and the largest group stay for short- term breaks. Considerable care is taken by staff to ensure that risk is well managed, whatever the children’s circumstances, and that they are safe when they are staying at the home.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: outstanding

The profoundly disabled nature of children staying at the home means that they are customarily dropped off and picked up at the front gate by trained escorts using specialised transport adapted to their needs. They do not leave the home unaccompanied by trained staff, and this means that many of the indicators of risk to a child living or staying in a children’s home are mitigated. Inspection report children’s home: SC034495 5 The home reports no episodes of children going missing, and no children staying there are at risk of sexual exploitation. The designated officer for professionals who abuse children has had no contact with the home. The home does not use sanctions or physical restraint to control children’s behaviour, as this would be neither appropriate nor necessary.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: outstanding

The home operates to an ethos of safe care. The administration of medication is carefully managed. Staff are trained by partner professionals to handle immobile children safely and appropriately. They generally work under supervision in a group environment, helping each other out.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: outstanding

Visitors to the home are welcomed, and the council commissions both independent advocates and an independent-minded visitor to deliver regular reports under Regulation 44. These reports should include more opinion and less description of care arrangements at the home. The report format is being adapted to encompass this, and in the interim, the independent visitor is noting their opinion on the form.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The home is well managed by a suitably qualified and experienced registered manager with the aid of an effective senior care worker team. The manager, who also manages LAFFS, is highly skilled at balancing the distinctive needs of each child staying at the home to provide each of them with a meaningful experience. He wants them to have fun, and to take away positive memories.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The management team embodies the child-centred ethos of the home. Managers are open, flexible and adaptive in their response to children’s needs. Because of a recent shortage of specialised foster placements, they have widened their age range and have provided a very high standard of care to children as young as four years old. The manager responded immediately to feedback that the home’s written statement of purpose could be clearer in identifying the positive input the home can make to the care plans of these younger children. The statement of purpose was sharpened by the manager during the inspection.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff spoken to during the inspection said that they were well supported to do their job. They are supervised monthly and subject to regular appraisals of their personal development. Staff’s training needs are suitably met through an efficient system of notification. The availability of the next course required to meet staff’s statutory and mandatory training requirements is suitably flagged to them. Where the need is specific to the home, the session is organised internally; for example, this was the case for the recent training staff received on the specialised medical needs of children who were being admitted to the home.

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Information about this inspection

Inspection report children’s home: SC034495 6 Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children and young people. Inspectors considered the quality of work and the differences made to the lives of children and young people. They watched how professional staff work with children and young people and each other and discussed the effectiveness of help and care provided. Wherever possible, they talked to children and young people and their families. In addition, the inspectors have tried to understand what the children’s home knows about how well it is performing, how well it is doing and what difference it is making for the children and young people whom it is trying to help, protect and look after.

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Information about this inspection

Using the ‘Social care common inspection framework’, this inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000 to assess the effectiveness of the service, how it meets the core functions of the service as set out in legislation, and to consider how well it complies with the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the ‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’. Inspection report children’s home: SC034495 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Kingston Upon Hull City Council

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: The Guildhall, Alfred Gelder Street, HULL HU1 2AA

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Inspector

Ian Young, HMI Inspection report children’s home: SC034495 8 achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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